Eric B & Rakim ~ Paid in Full (1987)

This is one of the Golden Era’s best albums. In fact, it’s one of the best rap albums ever made; past, present, and, dare I say, future. In terms of scope and influence, you’d be hard pressed to downplay the importance of either this album (Paid in Full), or its authors, New York duo Eric B & Rakim.

For a tandem that would leave such an indelible mark on rap music, it’s fitting that Eric B & Rakim had a serendipitous beginning. The two legends emerged from Queens and Long Island, New York respectively: Eric B (Louis Eric Barrier), a DJ from Elmhurst, Queens that spun for New York radio station WBLS; and Rakim (William Griffin, Jr.), an ice-toned wunderkind from Wyandanch, Long Island. Rakim, a scion of a musically inclined family, earned his stripes initially as a teen MC/DJ hybrid named Kid Wizard, who regularly performed at parties and park jams on Long Island. In 1984, while studying the philosophies of the Nations of Gods and Earths, Kid Wizard adopted the attribute Rakim Allah – or “Rakim” for short – an acronym for Ruler-Allah-King-I-Master – from the NGE’s Supreme Alphabet; and he delved deeper into the science of MC’ing. Disciplined in his poetic studies, but still not considering rap a viable career option, Rakim cut a 90-minute tape with Long Island luminary DJ Maniac in 1985, with plans to exhibit it at Stony Brook University, an L.I. college he hoped to attend to play football. Through Alvin Toney, a Wyandanch native who knew both Rakim and Eric B, a copy of Ra’s tape found its way to Eric, who was looking for an emcee to work with; and after being introduced by Toney, Eric B convinced Rakim to join forces with him. In 1986, the duo linked with Harlem street label Zakia Records, cut a successful single (“Eric B. Is President” b/w “My Melody”), and soon found themselves being courted by major record labels. Among these labels was 4th & Broadway Records, a Manhattan imprint that focused primarily on street music. After signing a full album deal with 4th and Broadway in ’86, Eric B and Rakim recorded an additional 8 tracks to go with the 2 selections from their first single; and in the summer of 1987, a jewel of an album was bestowed on the rap world: Paid in Full.

Paid in Full is 10 tracks of pure perfection; with seven masterful unions of lyrics and production, two DJ exposés for Eric B, and one sublime reprise for one of its most memorable cuts. Eric B & Rakim come out fresh from the starting gate with the opener “I Ain’t No Joke”, an eternal banger that also exemplifies what made this duo so potent. The song is driven by a series of swift drum clops, along with a sparse horn break – chopped up by Eric B – that serves as its sole melodic component. But the clear star of “I Ain’t No Joke” is Rakim, who spits bars of steel until the mic explodes. And, in what would become common practice in his career, Ra fades out the song smoothly, walks away stone-faced, and leaves the microphone in fragments. Eric B & Rakim employ the basic but elegant stratagem from “I Ain’t No Joke” throughout Paid in Full; continuing on with “My Melody”, the astonishing B-side to their debut single. “My Melody” is a seven-minute lyrical odyssey, where the 18-year-old Rakim Allah holds listeners in suspended animation, over a slow-bop drum line and Spaghetti western synths that drift in and out. The tempo changes for a moment on “I Know You Got Soul”, a vigorous jawn set to a tumbling Funkadelic drum kit (from “You’ll Like It Too”) and the distinctive percolation of Bobby Byrd’s “I Know You Got Soul”, and Rakim does what only he could: stimulate the dance floor, and stun the cerebellum, in one fluid motion. And on “Move The Crowd”, the smoothness returns, through a milky organ-splashed instrumental that sways you from side to side, which Ra drives home with spiraling verses that mix cipher-caliber rhymes and NGE doctrine.

As Paid in Full plays on, Eric B & Rakim shuffle the deck, and pull another handful of high cards. The title cut, “Paid In Full”, is a textbook example of this theory. It’s a minimalist number where Eric B lays the canvas: hard-driving drums, flute flourishes and a resonant bassline – taken from the Soul Searchers’ “Ashley’s Roachclip” and Dennis Edwards’ “Don’t Look Any Further” respectively – and Rakim paints the portrait: a stark, 24-bar soliloquy on being broke; and striving to line his pockets with loot instead of lint. The next cut “As The Rhyme Goes On” is almost a dissertation on proper mic handling; as Rakim uses a shuffling drum pattern, a Beastie Boys vocal break, and an entrancing Barry White groove to deliver a nonstop verbal backslap, in a song that both Eminem (“The Way I Am”) and Nas (“Got Urself A…) would borrow from many years later. “Eric B Is President”, the duo’s opening salvo from 1986, is an ageless pearl where Eric B. assumes the role of Commander-in-Chief; governing the free world with the complete support of his ace boon Rakim, who touts his DJ’s acumen on the turntables and mixer, through several spellbinding verses. Eric B. also gets time in the sun, to shine on his own; starting with “Eric B Is On The Cut”, a glorious trunk rattler where Eric mixes divinely; and breaks a Rakim vocal (from “Eric B Is President”) down to its last compound. “Chinese Arithmetic” has Eric visiting the Pacific Rim, and mixing with robotic precision over an East Orient track that’s perfect for B-Boying. And the curtain closes on Paid in Full with “Extended Beat”, an instrumental reconstructing of “Move The Crowd”; that allows listeners to bounce and rock one last time.

Without a doubt, Eric B & Rakim were a remarkable team, and each man contributed greatly to their masterworks. Though his mixing wasn’t particularly mind-blowing, Eric B was quite adept on the 1s and 2s, with measured scratch routines that fit Rakim’s style like a glove. And, of course, with the release of this album, the world was introduced to perhaps the most formidable mic controller in Hip Hop History: Rakim Allah. With his steely baritone, intricate rhyme patterns, and concise bar structures, Rakim completely revised the MC’ing handbook. With all his other weapons, it also didn’t hurt that Ra’s rhyme flow was flawless. Rather than rhyme over a beat, Rakim’s phantom flow was perfectly conjoined with whatever track he chose. His voice functioned like a musical instrument. It was awe-inspiring, to say the least.

Paid in Full had an immediate impact on the rap world when it was released; selling more than a half million copies; and bewildering rap fans across the United States who’d never heard the sort of expert boom bap Eric B and Rakim produced. Rakim himself would later admit that the album’s framework was constructed with relative ease; with the beats laid and the rhymes written on the spot in the recording studio, and put to tape soon thereafter. But this barebones formula produced spectacular results; as the album became a standard bearer for Golden Era Hip Hop, and gained renown as one of the greatest recordings in music history, rap or otherwise. Eric B and Rakim would create other superb albums over the six years following Paid in Full, before parting ways in 1993. But, though they were together for a fairly brief time, the Long Island-Queens tandem left an impression that would last a lifetime. With their simple elegance and quiet consistency, Eric B & Rakim influenced a litany of artists, and moved millions of people the world over. No rap collection is complete without a copy of Paid in Full in it. It’s one of the tightest albums ever made; simple and plain.